B. R. Dionysius

For the Brown Booby, wind is solid as ground.

Fast air molecules hold them in place; an invisible

plinth rewards the seabirds with an advantageous

vista of high tide. They are juvenile delinquents

testing gravity’s authority. They want to steal.

These hunters are sailors’ souls cruising Urangan’s

wooden pier, coveting the bream that bend light

like lipstick mirrors of a morning. The shorebirds

wear a yellow gloss around their bills. Undersides

are mottled cream & brown like a light fixture

where moths have died & form a shadowy base.

One folds its wings back like an umbrella closing

& punctures the sea in a neat dive. They conquer

the ocean too; scaling this liquid mountain.

B. R. Dionysius was founding Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival. He has published over 500 poems in literary journals, anthologies, newspapers and online. His eighth poetry collection, Weranga was released in 2013. He teaches English at Ipswich Grammar School and lives in Chapel Hill, Brisbane.